What is the point of having MPs?

John McDonnell is right. I don't just mean about Heathrow – although the brilliant Theresa Villiers has made a knock-down case against the third runway on the BBC this morning. No, I mean about the feebleness of our Parliament. It is shameful that decisions of this magnitude can be made without reference to the people's elected representatives.

The story has been running all afternoon as an airport expansion row. Are we so habituated to our powerlessness, so acquiescent in the executive's abuse of its powers, that we no longer see the bigger issue?

There is no point in having MPs if they can't debate and vote on these issues, for Heaven's sake. Do we truly think we're better off being run by a cabal of lobbyists, ministers and quangos? What fools our fathers were if this be true.

UPDATE: Douglas Carswellmakes the point that the parliamentary authorities, so slow to keep the police out of parliament, were swift to remove a Member who had drawn attention to the powerlessness of the institution. No wonder our reverence for the institution isn't what it was.